The “Achieve Community,” a Ponzi-board money-cycling “program” targeted at Christians and positioned by some network marketers as an alternative for people who don’t want to “sell out” to banks and their “tiny little 1% annual return,” would like you to know that Santa Claus and an elf are on the team.

By buying one “EXTRA” $50 Achieve position on Christmas Day, Achievers will come into possession of “the gift that Keeps On Giving!” according to a bizarre new promo published on Facebook Saturday by Achieve co-founder Kristi Johnson.

A fellow Facebook poster, however, laments, “Kristi, Can you please answer this question? I tried the whole weekend to purchase new positions. But every time it says, an error occur[r]ed, your payment is declined. I called already to MasterCard and nothing is wrong with my Card. Problem seems to be with readytoachieve. I sent already 4 messages to readytoachieve, but i get no answer.”

Volunteers purportedly now are assisting Achieve, which appears to be transitioning to new financial vendors after parting company with Payoneer weeks ago, with support duties. Johnson has claimed she’s typically too busy to answer questions, that members should turn to the website FAQs and a recently installed private forum for assistance and that co-founder Troy Barnes “won’t be around much anymore” because of pressing family issues.

Separately, Achieve boosters parroting each other continue to circulate a promo that reads, “We are not investing in a stock or buying shares in a company. We are using our God given universal right to spend our money the way we want. We choose not to sell out to the banking system for their tiny little 1% annual return.”

The claim appears in both video and text form. It is common for HYIP promoters to invoke God and seek to fuel contempt against banks. Some Achieve promoters appear to have hijacked the original claim and worked it into their individual promos. The original source of the claim is unclear.

No authority that God had granted any such “universal right” is provided. Nor does the promo explain why banks are not doing the same thing Achieve is doing or how Achieve will get by if banks and payment vendors it relies on pull the plug on Achieve. If the assertion that banks pay 1 percent annually is true, however, it would mean that Achieve pays 800 times that percentage in three months or less.

Because banks have greater economies of scale than Achieve and greater opportunities to employ vertical integration, they could pound Achieve into the sand by simply adopting the Achieve business model — and yet they don’t do it.

The reason why is that the banks would be creating a liability of $400 for every $50 they accepted for the purchase of “positions” and that regulators and class-action litigants would attack any disclaimer language as an obvious attempt to sanitize a Ponzi scheme and create a license to steal tremendous sums of money.

Even though Achieve appears to have generated cash flow by switching to an offshore processor known as iPayDNA after the Payoneer divorce in late October or early November, Achieve very well could be insolvent today. This is because it is not meeting obligations when they become due. Payouts due Achieve members who joined or repurchased positions on Sept 12 were due to be paid in early November, but reportedly have not been paid.

That Achieve also appears to be playing payment processor roulette potentially adds to its attractiveness for class-action litigation against both itself and payment vendors on the theory of racketeering and “deepening insolvency.” (See this document from private litigants in the TelexFree bankruptcy case. Like Achieve, TelexFree was promoted on Ponzi boards such as MoneyMakerGroup. So was Zeek Rewards, a “program” that also has encountered class-action litigation. )

Achieve says $50 turns into $400. Multiple “positions” can be purchased. Some promos have extrapolated returns in the hundreds of thousands of dollars or even in excess of $1 million.

Members reportedly have not received payouts from Achieve since the relationship with Payoneer ended.

And let’s not forget that Kristi was making the claim that now that Achieve had its payment processor, Achieve would be paying out $700,000 that was to have started last week. Funny thing happened on the way to that big payout it didn’t happen, and no explanation as to why it didn’t either. You can bet that all the members complaining at the “Goodness and Light” FB page had their posts deleted.

Just a wee nitpick Patrick. Achieve was insolvent the moment it accepted the first incoming payment with the promise to pay it back with an 800% return, and no plan or resource to pay that ROI, then the scheduled payments were missed, they defaulted, and are currently both insolvent and in default.
That is, unless they have enough money in the bank or other resources to make all the promised payments on their books plus the administrative expenses that would go along with that.

“We are not investing in a stock or buying shares in a company. We are using our God given universal right to spend our money the way we want. We choose not to sell out to the banking system for their tiny little 1% annual return.”

I’d translate that as;

“We are not investing in a stock or buying shares in a company. We are using our God given right to help Kristi steal hundreds of thousands of dollars so that we get our cut. We choose not to earn legitimate incomes in the real economy producing goods and services that society finds useful”

You do only get about 1% interest if you keep your money in a regular checking account, but while I haven’t gotten my year end statement yet,the YTD return on the money I have in a hedge fund is 18.7%, and over the five years I’ve had the account, they’ve never had any payout issues…and they use Comerica Bank, a more or less mainstream FDIC Insured bank to make and receive payments. (my account is not FDIC insured though, but any money going to or coming from the fund is)

The lesson here kids is, if you put your money into real, legitimate and legal investments, and take a little care to watch over them, you can make decent returns, and if you have enough self discipline to leave it to grow, you can even build up enough to retire on someday.

Gregg: Just a wee nitpick Patrick. Achieve was insolvent the moment it accepted the first incoming payment with the promise to pay it back with an 800% return, and no plan or resource to pay that ROI, then the scheduled payments were missed, they defaulted, and are currently both insolvent and in default.

I can forsee a time when US regulators are going to have to bite the bullet and introduce some sort of regulations penalizing “trading while insolvent” like those that exist in the UK and Australia.

So, Achieve Community now has competition from Reach Society just in time for the holidays. The reach ROI is higher. Reach also offers a higher payout — $600, compared to the $400 of Achieve.

It will be interesting to see if Achievers start criticizing Reach as something outrageous while maintaining that Achieve is something precious.

I’d also point out that, during the middle of this month, a YouTube promo for Achieve took viewers inside the Achieve back offices/forum. In the forum, an ad for a cycler known as Cycles 24/7 was visible. Looks very much as though the Achieve member who posted the ad is a Ponzi player and that Achieve itself could be helping drive business to Ponzi-board “competitors.”

Well, there is also Xtremeprosystem that is a spin-off of Achieve and now we have Cycles 24/7 cycler that just launched. Seems everyone wants in on the gold mine, and you know there will be at least 2-3 more very shortly.

Of course they all are shooting themselves in the foot, but hey it is easy money for the taking while it lasts.